Jason Todd

Tension in the bunker was building. Every minute that passed while Bruce, Cass, and Selina confronted our 'visitors' ratcheted up the pressure, until I felt like my chest might just fucking collapse under the strain. I sat on my cot with my hands in my hair, gaze fixed on the floor. If only so I didn't have to pay attention to Damian's incessant pacing, Alfred's obsessive preparation of our medbay, or Tim and Barbara's furtive glances back and forth between different monitors.

Briefly, I entertained the idea that it wasn't an intruder at all. That maybe Dick had made it back, somehow. But as soon as the thought entered my head, I realized how idiotic it was. Dick would have come straight back, not fucked around upstairs on some mezzanine. Especially since he was hurt.

Bleeding and concussed and bruised. Even before he turned back. If they so much as breathed on him again I swear to fuck I'm going to…

"Oh, shit."

Tim's quiet declaration carried enough weight to drag me out of my murderous fantasies.

"Care to elaborate?" I snapped, looking up at last.

"Incursion was five minutes ago. Now all six heat signatures are headed back this way." He snatched up his bo-staff, a rarely used relic, and flattened himself against the wall by the door.

"Slow your roll there, genius," I huffed. "What makes you think these are hostiles?"

"Safer to assume the worst." He gestured to the others to get ready, too.

Silently, Barbara followed suit. Tucking away into the shadows as best she could, armed with a taser. Even Alfred squared up, protecting Duke, ready to fight back.

I thought their caution was ridiculously overboard, but I found myself holding my breath, standing and widening my stance. Planning and strategizing, even as the latch on the heavy door lifted.

Bruce stepped over the threshold first. His face was grim, and my heart stuttered to a stop. Bad news was coming? I was sure of it. Only started beating again when Selina and Cass came into view, both smiling. The thick cloud of fear evaporated, and a ripple of relief tinged with anticipation spread through all of us.

Well, almost all of us.

The only one who didn't relax was Tim. Suspicious fucker. A trait that only got worse with time. "What's happening? Why did you bring other people with you? After the hell you gave Jason for compromising us?"

Bruce looked like he'd swallowed something disgusting. He contorted his face into something more unpalatable than a grimace. But Cass was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, which was very unlike her usual restrained grace.

"They're here because they want to help. You'll all want to hear this." Behind her casual, effortless aloofness, Selina seemed nervous, and tentatively waved in three people who were standing just outside the door. Two women and a man. A guy whose face seemed so damned familiar…

"Uh, hello." The man started speaking cautiously, eyes darting between us. Unsure. "It's like I told them. Everybody saw what they did to Nightwing. What they're gonna do. But no matter what they say, us locals know what kinda guy he is. He kept me from making one of the worst mistakes of my life. Gave me a chance to be with my boy before he…" the man sniffled, and his story dragged a memory out to the forefront of my mind.

They guy from the hospital. The guy Dick was ready to take a bullet for. The guy I did take a shot for. Lucas, was it?

He pointedly fixed his face, biting off the beginnings of actually crying. "Anyways. We all got things like that. Ways that Nightwing saved our asses. Or picked us up off the street. All kinds of heroic shit. We've been mobilizing since we saw that they had him. Lots of us. But we need help. Coupla guys figured out where Nightwing was picked up, thought maybe we'd find other Bats nearby. We've been searching around there ever since. Luck would have it you all came out and found us."

Damian tutted in disbelief. "You're telling me there are, what? Hundreds of you? All ready to step up and fight back for him? You realize this is a suicide mission for most of you, right?"

One of the women behind Lucas simply shook her head. "No. Not hundreds. Thousands. Thousands of people who owe Nightwing their lives, and are ready to pay up if they gotta. Cause he don't even know us and he's stepped up for us. Only seems right that we do the same."

I smiled as a morbid glee flooded my chest, almost replacing the despair from before. We weren't just going after Dick in some doomed, impossible mission. We were going in with a fucking army.

And those sick freaks that took Dickie, hurt him…

They were gonna pay.

Behind the waves of savage satisfaction, I felt the niggling of guilt. Shame that I had tried, again and again, to force Dick to just look out for himself and forget these people. People I was convinced didn't give a rats ass about him.

I'm so sorry, Dickie. I've never been more wrong.

— — — — — —

Before

I had my suspicions for weeks.

Dick was sneaking out.

Not in a "stepping out on our pseudo-serious relationship" sense. But about 4 years into the war, with no end in sight, we had both agreed to patrol less, focus on us more. Especially since new bombing threats were coming in every day. It was pretty clear the world was really on its last legs this time. And even Dick had agreed that maybe, maybe, we should stop fighting so fucking hard.

At least I thought he had.

Then there were fresh bruises that popped up days after a night out patrolling. Ones I only really noticed as I was lazily running my hands down his back, across his hips, drawing my attention and alarm when he winced at such a light touch. The haggard, stressed look he got when he was barely sleeping, even though we'd been spending more time than ever in bed.

It all came to a head when I woke up to the sound of running water in the kitchen and Dick nowhere to be found. So I tiptoed carefully out of the bedroom, taking care to avoid the floorboards that I knew creaked. I made it as far as the threshold between carpet and linoleum before he noticed me.

He looked up, mouth opening slightly with a denial on his lips as he abandoned the task of cleaning out a deep gash in his hand.

"What the fuck happened?" I growled, trying and failing to keep the white hot edge of betrayal and rage out of my voice. I wasn't fucking stupid. I knew how a person got hurt like that. Knew what he was up to. But I wanted him to tell me to my face. Admit the lies.

He shut off the water. Put his good hand to the bridge of his nose and pinched hard with a sigh. "Jay…" he said softly, avoiding an explanation.

I did my best to count breaths, but I couldn't concentrate over the steady drip-dripping of Dick's blood hitting the stainless steel sink basin. "You promised we were backing off! You lied to me! And now look!" I snatched his wrist and held his red-stained hand in front of his face. Not seeing the grimace that would have told me I was hurting him.

"What do you want me to say, Jason?" My name was like acid on his tongue, painful and burning. "I can't sit by and play house with you while people are dying right outside our window! I won't." He wrenched his hand away and returned to the task of cleaning the bloody slice, pointedly ignoring me.

I should have apologized. Should have checked my rage before I even stepped out of our bedroom. But I was so fucking tired of this argument. Tired of him idealizing his own slow march to suicide. Tired of him claiming the moral high-ground to justify his own recklessness. "How long, huh?" I demanded. "How long have you been going out behind my back after you swore we'd take it easy?"

"Do you even care what I did tonight?" He deflected. "Who I saved? Children, Jay. Kids being exploited by pimps for ration tickets, of all things. Even if it is the end of the goddamn world, don't they deserve to spend their final days doing anything other than being used and destroyed by people who couldn't care less about them?"

I just stood there. Breathing heavily and shaking my head. "Of course I care that you saved some kids. But I think I'm the only one that actually cares about you, and that's a sad fucking statement. Because you don't even care about you. I mean, look at yourself." I tugged at his hand, gentler this time, and sighed, "Parts of this cut are down to the tendon, Dick. How the hell did this even happen?"

Shuddering, he sucked a breath over his teeth and dropped his head. Clenched his eyes shut. "Some of the kids were already dead or dying by the time I got there. I pulled off my gloves to check for a pulse while I gave one of them CPR. A pimp I'd put down didn't stay down. Used the opportunity to pull a knife. I reacted, not even thinking about the fact that my gloves were still on the ground, and…"

My face contorted in an expression between disgust, pain, and disbelief. "You grabbed a knife with your bare hands?! What the hell kind of rookie mistake is that?"

"It was a… miscalculation…" He was grasping for an explanation and failing.

"Bullshit!" I was getting emotional whiplash, careening back and forth between tenderness and fury. "You're Dick Fucking Grayson!. You don't make 'miscalculations'. You fucked up because you're running yourself into the ground. Again!"

I felt like we were stuck in some sort of time loop. Having the same fight over and over again. It was as if he…

"You can't stop. It's not that you won't, you literally can't." My softly spoken epiphany was a stark contrast to the flat out screaming from before, but somehow it seemed louder.

"I've been doing this for around twenty years, Jay. I can't just…" he shrugged, defeated.

Goddamnit.

There it was. An ultimatum. He may not have said it, but it was pretty fucking clear.

'I'm not going to change. I can't. So accept it or we're done.'

What could I possibly say that I hadn't already said a thousand times over? I stood at the edge of a devastating decision. Should I protect myself and let him go, knowing he would destroy himself in a matter of weeks? Or should I love him as long as I have him, watching his back and patching him up until it wouldn't be enough anymore? Until his mile-wide self-sacrificing streak caught up to him, and I was left behind to bury him?

I huffed at him, and made my choice. "You need stitches, dumbass. I'll get the kit."

"I'm sorry, Jay. I…" he began.

"Don't." I cut him off. I wasn't interested in hearing any empty apologies.

The sorrow and anger burning my skin changed into a regret I was ashamed of.

Damnit, Dick. I love you. But I never thought I'd live to see the day when I wished I didn't.

— — — — — —

After

Training and coordinating seditionists into full blown revolutionaries was not my fucking wheelhouse. I laughed to myself as Tim, Bruce, and Dami herded cats, bringing small groups, dribble by dribble, into the stadium for marching orders and basic tactical instruction. This all seemed very much like something Dickie would have been great at. Was it irony that he wasn't here to help? Or just really fucking inconvenient?

I was more than a little aware that this was a massive concession on Bruce's part. There was no way to really vet these people, and yet he was bringing them to our doorstep again and again. We all understood what it meant.

We were going to get Dickie back, or we were going to die trying.

Part of me was grateful that we were so busy. The days leading up to his Tribunal blurred into each other. But I couldn't stop waking up from sweat-soaked nightmares each night. Nightmares where we were already too late.

Dickie's lifeless blue eyes staring right at me. Right through me. His dark hair absolutely soaked in blood…

Needless to say, when the night before the Tribunal finally came, I was relieved. Even if everyone else in the family was buzzing with anxiety like they were coming down off a coke bender.

Everything was ready. Our 'army' had their instructions, and all of them had gone to their respective homes to rest and give their loved ones what might be a final farewell. Most of 'the family' huddled around our map of Gotham, drawing sweeping red arrows onto the paper, marking out the final details of the plan.

I listened distractedly as they droned through the tacticalities again.

"We've got everybody divided up. Ten battalions of roughly 200 each. After the Tribunal, after they ostensibly malign Dick and sentence him, those groups will storm the front, drawing fire so our team can slip into the back and grab him." Tim added a few more arrows directed at the front of the courthouse on the map. "Even with numbers on our side, we won't have long. We've got a smattering of handguns and improvised weapons. They have M16s and grenade launchers. It's going to get… ugly. Fast."

"The good news is," Barbara interjected, shooting a look at Tim and chastising his pessimism, "with that many people, streets will be choked off. Any reinforcements they might be able to call in would be stuck, blocks away from the actual incursion. And everything in our intel says that most Enforcers are still down for the count."

Everyone was so caught up in their plans, they didn't notice Duke. Usually still and impassive, he started violently shaking his head and muttering something.

I slipped off of my perch, Dickie's top bunk, and strode over to him, leaning in and listening intently.

"What're you saying, buddy?" I tried to be as gentle as possible. After all, Dick made me promise to take care of the kid.

He pulled hard down on my collar, eyes wide and terrified. He finally found a voice above a whisper. "Bait. Dick is bait. They're ready for you. They're waiting for you. Bruce… Bruce is the one they're after."

My eyes snapped up to the Old Man. Of course this was about him. We'd all taken turns as the Batman's human shield. And this wouldn't be the first time one of us was beaten, tortured and used as leverage against him. A song and dance I was intimately familiar with.

The others had heard it too. Bruce's eyes darkened ominously as I glared at him, pulling sharply away from Duke's grip. Before I could swallow it down, rage climbed up my throat. "They're going to kill Dick because of you!" I stormed over to him and pushed him. I might as well have raged against a boulder. He was as stony and impassive as one.

"This changes nothing," he rumbled. "The motivations of his captors are not our concern. We are as prepared as we can be to handle contingencies."

"We'd better be," I warned, "because if he dies, if they murder him, I swear to God I'll..."

"You'll what, Jason?" He raged back. "Because I have half a mind to keep you out of this. You're obviously too emotionally invested to think clearly! In spite of all our careful planning, your lack of discipline might get him killed anyway!"

I felt Selina's light hand on the back of my neck. A gentle squeeze and an understanding smile interrupted the furious threat I was preparing to hurl back. "Let's not say something we'll regret, hm? It's clear we're all very worried about him. This time tomorrow, we can all breathe a little better, yeah?" She shot a scathing glare at Bruce and he stepped away, effectively retreating from the confrontation.

Scowling at her matronizing, I relented. "Fine."

I just had to endure one more night. One more night of horrific dreams. One more night before I could hold him again, beg him to reconsider, take back everything I'd said to him in anger. I stalked over to Dickie's bunk like a petulant child and sunk my face in his pillow.

It didn't smell like him anymore.